IN ONE EAR: Think you're a good listener? Put yourself to the test in this activity.
Image: George Retseck
Key concepts
Psychology
Attention
Working memory
Communication
Introduction
Have you ever told a friend or family member something only to later find that he or she completely misunderstood you—or never heard you at all? People often tell each other about important information that is not properly received, even when the conversation occurs in a quiet setting at close range. Why does this happen? In this activity, you will learn why communication can be so difficult by probing the psychology of listening. You will also experience how much a simple spoken message can be distorted.
Background
The act of listening seems simple enough: the ears register the sounds produced and the brain interprets them, assuming the sounds reach the ears and the listener knows the meaning of the words. In the real world, however, the situation is usually far more complicated. First, to mentally process the message, the person to whom you are speaking has to be paying attention. Not only may external distractions—a baby crying or a TV on in the background—divert their minds away from the words, but their own thoughts might also similarly lead them astray. Lost in thought, they are just not hearing you.
Processing language takes a fair amount of thought. We use a short-term mental sketch pad, so-called working memory, to hold each word and its meaning in mind long enough to combine it with others. If the meaning of any of the words is unclear, the task becomes harder.
In addition, people often don't express themselves clearly in the first place. They forget to include important background or context, which can dramatically shape the meaning of words. They might mumble some words or simply choose the wrong word, one that does not truly reflect what they mean. In short, even when the other person's brain is ready to listen, the information they need from a speaker is often not all there.
Materials
• Pencil or pen
• Paper
• Four or more friends or family members
• Stereo, TV or other device that makes noise (optional)
Preparation
• Ask your participants to sit in a circle.
• Explain that you will be whispering a statement to one person, who should then repeat it to the next person—and so on, until the message has made it around to everyone. Tell your participants to whisper the statement to their neighbor only once.
• Using a pen or pencil, write down a sentence that is at least 12 words long. For instance: "Sam dashed quickly over to Jimmy's house to remind his friend about the English assignment."
• Memorize the sentence; then fold over the paper, hiding your work. Don't show what you wrote.
Procedure
• Join your friends in the circle.
• Whisper the sentence you memorized to the person next to you so that only that person can hear it.
• Ask your neighbor to whisper the statement to the next person in the circle.
• Observe the message make its way to every person in the group. Notice: What else is going on around you? Is everyone paying attention equally well?
• When the last person has heard the statement, ask him or her to repeat it out loud.
• Write that sentence on your piece of paper.
• Read your original sentence to the group.
• Compare the two sentences. Are they different? Is the meaning of the distorted statement the same as the original or did it change in significant ways? If you really wanted to say this to someone, how much would the differences matter?
• Ask the group if they could hear the statement clearly. Did people generally think they got it right? What does their answer suggest about communication and miscommunication?
• Extra: Write a simpler, shorter sentence and repeat the activity. Compare the before and after sentences again. Are they more similar this time? Why? Does your new result suggest anything to you about how to communicate more effectively?
• Extra: Create another more complex statement like your original one. This time, let people say the sentence to their neighbor more than once. Compare the before and after sentences again. Are they more similar this time? Why? Does your new result suggest anything to you about how to communicate more effectively?
• Extra: Try the same activity again with a new simple sentence, but this time with a radio or TV on in the room. Do people look more distracted? How close is the final sentence to the one you started out with? Do you think having the background noise made it more difficult to pay attention to and remember the sentence?
• Extra: Ask your group to talk about times in which they remember being misunderstood. What happened? What were the consequences? What do they think went wrong in those cases? Talk about the best practices for good spoken communication. Can you come up with five rules?
Rights & Permissions
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12 Comments
Add CommentWith the advent of smart phones and the like, I think more people would like to give up communication completely in favor of some form of electronic redirection circuitry. Not caring is the biggest barrier to communication that exists. The abuse that language suffers, from legal misdirection to political vagary is the best excuse available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to 'whisper', no doubt the information that you are trying to pass on is going to get much more distorted. When we want to be truly listened to I doubt that we are going to engage in whispering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that's nearer most communication issues than people not hearing... people have become extremely self centered and technology excuses and perpetuates it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, that was supposed to be a reply to WRQ9. Communication issues!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists engaged in research from public funding should be more careful in listening from public medias for better utilization of their fund.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's been a while since I was in school, but doesn't twelve words exceed the limitations (7 plus or minus 2 chunks) of working memory?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I agree with Anju1's comment about whispering.
The article merely touched on communications difficulties and the little experiment did no more than illustrate the trivial nature of what the article was actually talking about without addressing important issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA sentence of at least 12 words? Okay, this is little more than a more easily remembered random number memory test.
Failure to communicate is not failure to hear or remember idea fragments.
A significant Scientific Amerian article about the basics of playing "telephone"? What's the world coming to?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight, and the Milgram experiment was about flicking switches.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisParents of small children are the worst at not listening. I could be telling my daughter-in-law that I have 2-weeks to live and if one of her kids said something, her attention would immediately be directed away from me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrankly I believe the younger generations are too self-centered and arrogant to listen to anyone.
to Grumpyoleman: Don't know how old you are but from my experience over 4 decades, the problem isn't arrogance or self-centered - ness. Its old, crotchety morons like yourself who come into conversations with preconcieved ideas about how things are going to go. And you will look for the examples you want, disregarding other, more pertinant information. Check the mirror. Probably just another example of the pot calling the kettle black.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about people "misunderstanding" purely due to listener preconceptions and assumptions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this